Down With the Dislike Button

23:17
Kelly Wheelhouse
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YouTube's Dislike button is something that most YouTubers hate. The main reason being that people abuse their power to use it. Disliking a video should't even be an option. I wouldn't mind getting dislikes if the video was truly terrible, but most the dislikes I've ever received on AspectReviews channel seem purely spiteful. It may as well be a 'hater' button. If someone doesn't like a video, why can't they just click away from it and never let it worry them ever again? Why should they be able to express their hatred for the video with the simple click of a button? For people who are new to YouTube, a dislike can be the defining moment where they decide not to carry on with their newfound hobby. But if they'd had the courage to carry on, without the haters, then they may have had the qualities over time to become one of the best YouTubers you have ever seen.
So far their have been dislikes on our channel for a few different reasons:
Firstly, we have a video where we reviewed a Littlest Pet Shop blind bag. We thought the figure we got was a bit tacky, and in a silly moment tried to pull its head off. It was just a bit of fun. But we soon learned that by disliking the product, we were drawing in dislikes on the video. That particular video worked itself up 53 dislikes in total, and too many comments to count saying "if you don't like it, why did you buy it?" (maybe we bought it because we didn't know what it was and wanted to REVIEW the product with a non-biased opinion), and "it's a corgi" (we got over 25 comments saying this one. I think we realised this after the first person told us that it was a corgi). So the reason for all the dislikes on this video was because the Littlest Pet Shop collectors seem to take any negative comments with extreme hatred. If they were not happy that we hadn't liked their favourite product, why not just close the video down and get on with their lives? Why do they have to waste time typing out a spiteful comment that many others have also said? The way I see it, if you don't like something, just don't watch it. Also, the other Littlest Pet Shop videos we did (and spoke positively of the products as we liked them more than the first one) we only got 6 likes. It just shows that they are happy to spend the time disliking videos, but not so happy spending that time liking a video.
The second reason for disliking is more of an unknown, but we know for sure this happens and has happened at least 5 times with AspectReviews. We go through periods of time with hardly any dislikes- just the odd one here and there. And then suddenly, our first page of recent uploads has 1 dislike on every video within an hour. It is clearly someone who has watched one video, not liked it, so clicked on all our other videos and disliked them. Seriously, what on earth is the point in that? Do you have nothing better to do with your life? It really frustrates me. The worst one we had was when this happened, but 4 dislikes at once on a whole page of videos. Why?
The main trend I am seeing from AspectReviews is that at least 80% of all dislikes are purely malicious. Why should this be allowed to carry on? People are working very hard on their videos and are getting dislikes for what?
Just look at anyone more famous e.g. Zoella. Her October Favourites video has 721 dislikes in 5 days. All she has done is tell people what her favourite things have been through the month of October, so clearly those 721 dislikes are just people who don't like her, or her style of video. Why should that warrant a dislike? It shouldn't.
I am very frustrated and cannot stress enough about how annoyed I am that the dislike button even exists, and that people waste time in their precious little lives posting hate comments!
Feel free to comment with your experiences of the dislike button.
Kelly